Underwhich Editions was/is a multiply-unique publishing coöperative that issued primarily from Toronto (with some blurts from Saskatoon & Sault Sainte Marie) into & throughout the 198os, its final(?) publication released in 1998.

in 1978, a consortium of Toronto publishers conspired to produce the 3rd volume of Bob Cobbing’s collected poems, a peal in air. bpNichol had been running Ganglia Press since 1965; Steve McCaffery’s Anonbeyond Press had released a handful of fugitive publications since 197o; Michael Dean’s Wild Press had just gotten going early in 1975; Richard Truhlar’s Phenomenon Press began its series of remarkable releases in 1976. the Cobbing collection came out with all imprints attached – bibliographically clunky perhaps but a fine way of citing a group effort of support.

simultaneous with this, preparations were underway for the 11th International Festival of Sound Poetry in Toronto. previous festivals had generated some extravagant productions, primarily in the form of posters & programmes, with Michael Gibbs’ anthology Kontextsound accompanying the 1oth in Amsterdam (i can find no references to any previous anthological souvenirs). McCaffery & Nichol kicked things up several notches with the preparation of Sound Poetry: A Catalogue: 111 pages of scores, essays, photographs & capsule biographies, all stunningly designed by master typographer Glenn Goluska. this was going to want something a little more deliberate by way of an imprint in stead of the hodgepodge of Presses decorating the colophon of the Cobbing book.

John Riddell had been involved in both Ganglia & Phenomenon, & Brian Dedora & Paul Dutton were in the middle of it all with no imprints of their own but hot to participate. as the anthology grew toward completion, the question became: “under which imprint do we release this beast?”, thus providing its own answer in the very statement of the problem. with an intentionality toward producing things other than standard small press fare (the cover of the first catalogue pronounces “a fusion of high production standards and top-quality literary innovation”), the word “editions” was chosen as most representative of that focus & Underwhich Editions was launched at the festival with not only the anthology but a catalogue listing a further 4 print titles (by Rafael Barreto-Rivera, Dedora, McCaffery & R.Murray Schafer) & 2 cassettes (by McCaffery).

Underwhich Editions, formed in exigency at a critical period in & when Toronto had a greater complement of so-called “experimental” writers than anywhere else on the planet, grew quickly into the gap left by Coach House Press’s domestication. the only other Canadian publishers that paid primarily lipservice to the more challenging areas of literary production didn’t go very far outta their way to support the avant garde, gasping out a title or 2 every coupla years orso (witness Oberon, who made a splash in 197o with 2 bpNichol titles, instigated their own attempt at a series focussing on concrete/visual poetry with the release of Four Parts Sand, then bailed & went back to storytelling & conservative criticism). besides a smattering of the what’re now called “micropresses” (& it is to be remembered that micropresses are just as much part of the problem as any other demographic, serving primarily to further their own interests in the face of the greater disdain, most of anything that gets published usually wallowing in much-trampled LCD mud), noöne else seemed to give a shit about the vast amount of worldclass material being produced in Canada, much less anything beyond the pond. & while some of the micropresses maintained a respectably constant engagement in making challenging work available, few of them had the budget for grander gestures, nor the patience for building larger structures over time.

bpNichol. First Screening: Computer Poems. Underwhich Editions, 1984.

with its conspiratorial core of 8 (Dean, Dedora, Dutton, McCaffery, Nichol, Riddell, Smith, Truhlar), all given editorial independence in a spirit of mutual trust & understanding of the underlying mandate (again from the cover of the first catalogue: “…dedicated to presenting, in diverse and appealing physical formats, new works by contemporary creators, focusing on formal invention and encompassing the expanded frontiers of literary endeavour.”), Underwhich virtually exploded into action with an initial series of smaller works from almost all editors, each given the physical attention they deserved to become fully-realized works of book art in addition to their values as literary artefacts. editors were free to do what they wanted & could also join forces to pool resources for the production of more involved titles.

i vividly remember the first Underwhich book i saw: a little pile of LeRoy Gorman’s Whose Smile The Ripple Warps (198o) stacked face-up somewhere in Paul Stuewe’s Nth Hand Books on Harbord Street, Toronto, in later 198o. consisting entirely of typestract miniatures that function somewhat on the level of haiku, the small book gives each piece ample room without dwarfing them in a slender, perfectbound volume that suggests, through its very simple cover, “here is something beautiful”. the only thing it lacked was ostentation, which was in far greater unwanted supply elsewhere. it was, in fact, beautiful; in further fact, it still is beautiful & never won’t be. what the fuck more could one possibly ask for? (i suppose a signed copy…)

Four Horseman. Bootleg. Underwhich Editions, 1981.

almost all the material coming outta Underwhich provoked further investigation of the press itself & those whose work it produced (& those who produced it). it also provoked interest in others in joining in its collective identity, all of whom came to Underwhich through an active editor’s kind-of-sponsorship & bringing with them their own experience with publishing through their own imprints. over the years, other active participants were jwcurry (of Curvd H&z, Industrial Sabotage, et al), Beverley Daurio (Mercury Press, Paragraph), Frank Davey (Massassauga Editions, Open Letter), Mary Stevens Grace, Karl Jirgens (Rampike), & Jim Smith (The Front Press).

except for a brief flirtation with a distributor, Underwhich advertised its material primarily by mail &, lesserly, at various book fairs. it also began promoting publications from other publishers that they felt fit their evolving model.

Underwhich Editions was an absolutely unique occurrence in Canadian publishing history. its dissolution occurred following the slow dispersion of many of its constituents: curry to Ottawa, Davey to London, Dedora to Vancouver, Jirgens to Sault Sainte Marie, McCaffery to Buffalo, Nichol’s death, & Steven Smith to Saskatoon (where he gamely continued on for awhile as the “prairie branchplant”). apparently, Lucas Mulder & Lia Pas also supplemented the skeleton with Dutton & Smith at the end of its active phase.

its many accomplishments are unique figures on the mulched ground of Canadian literature.

McCAFFERY (Steve) Epithalamion for the marriage of Marjeceta Cujes to Salvatore Incardona. Mono Hills, Dufferin County 3o September 1978. [Toronto], Underwhich Editions, january 1979. 3oo #d copies. 4 pp printed, offset. 5 x 1o, leaflet. an uncommonly subjective lyricism to this poem for 2 friends that McCaffery refuses to talk about (& which he attempted to destroy the run of), braced by 2 anagrammatical concrete cover tableaux. one of the 1st batch of Underwhich publications.

RIDDELL (John) D’Art Board. Toronto, Underwhich Editions,1987. not released separately. 6 pp printed, photocopy. 3-3/4 x 8-1/2, leaflet. the instruction sheet for Riddell’s version of a game of darts, which had been issued by Underwhich as a large broadside. this accompanied that but also accompanied a small mini-darts desk set that he issued privately in a very small edition of one-off constructions for friends.

DEDORA (Brian) he moved. Toronto, Underwhich Editions, 1979. 28 pp, all except endleaves printed offset rectos only. 1o-1/2 x 7, stapled wrappers. a poem in translations [Erse by John Doyle, Ukrainian by Marco Carynnyk] that switch sides of the page as the sequence progresses, the english coming from between as they cross over each other. an elegant poem & concrete sequencing & one of the 1st batch of Underwhich titles.

FIVE ON FICHE. Prose and poetry. edited by Richard Truhlar. Toronto, Underwhich Editions, 198o. [25o copies?] issued as Microfiche Series #1. 5-13/16 x 4-1/8, photographic acetate broadside in 6 x 4-1/8 pocket printed offset recto only. the contributors are Michael Dean, Brian Dedora, John Riddell, Steven Smith & Truhlar. anyone with an old ‘fiche reader stashed in their walk-in closet? excited by the low cost of production of a single microprint acetate rather than an 84pp book, Truhlar plotted a series of such anthologies (it was to’ve been followed by Langscapes, an anthology of concrete/visual poetry coëdited by Riddell) but the idea petered out in the face of sparse orders: if people were going to have to go to a library to read it, let the library order it (few did).